From a 35-year sentence, commuted to time served (7 years) for one of the largest breaches of diplomatic and military secrecy in American history—including thousands of classified State Department cables—carried out by an army intelligence analyst.

A pertinent comment left at the above tweet: “Dems ok with leaking military secrets but not DNC secrets.”

More. During his December 2011 pretrial hearing, the New York Daily Newsreported of the defendant then known as Bradley Manning:

…his lawyers argued his status as a gay soldier before the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” played an important role in his actions.

Lawyers for Pfc. Bradley Manning began laying out a defense to show that his struggles in an environment hostile to homosexuality contributed to mental and emotional problems that should have barred him from having access to sensitive material.

The paper also reported that “The Obama administration says the released information has threatened valuable military and diplomatic sources and strained America’s relations with other governments.”

Log Cabin Republicans has always condemned Manning’s actions, and consistently stood against efforts by the left to elevate Manning as a paragon of the LGBT community.

“Chelsea Manning is no hero, and the commutation of her sentence is appalling,” Log Cabin Republicans President Gregory T. Angelo stated. “Manning was not imprisoned for being transgender — in fact, the government agreed to accommodate and facilitate her transition during her well-deserved sentence; she was imprisoned for traitorous clandestine activity that put military lives at risk. Her actions — and President Obama’s clemency — are nothing to celebrate.”

For centuries, gay people have served with distinction and honor in the armed forces, and it is the service of these countless veterans whom today’s gays can thank for the freedom to serve openly. Bradley Manning’s actions are fodder to those who have long argued that homosexuality naturally leads to treason; some on the far right have argued that his actions were intended as “revenge” over the military’s then-enforced anti-gay policy. It is unconscionable that gay activists, of all people, would play into these slanders.

Still more. A “potent symbol for transgender Americans.” Chase Strangio, Manning’s ACLU attorney, said that “Her story really does reflect so much of the systemic discrimination that transgender people face,” adding “She’s an incredibly thoughtful and devoted person,” and that “She’s felt a sense of responsibility to the transgender community and wanted to be someone who contributed to the fight for transgender justice.”

To which the Washington Timeseditorialized: “No one doubts Chelsea Manning’s feelings of ‘responsibility to the transgender community.’ It’s a pity she felt no such responsibility to her country, and to the men and women who were assigned to the battlefield to defend that country with their very lives.”

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Much of what has been leaked wasn’t worth whatever effort it took to get it. Did we really need to read anyone’s recipes? Some should have been redacted like private phone numbers. The only reason to publish that is to encourage harassment. Some of it did endanger people in war zones and people should be punished for that. But a great deal of what was embarrassing wasn’t classified and even more shouldn’t have been. For about 35 years now our government has been overzealous in classifying just about everything and they do that not to protect national security but to protect themselves. Citizens have a right to know what their government is doing on their behalf. Yes, some things need to be secret but not most of what is classified and certainly not for as long as current law allows.

I cannot come closer to your impression of the political winds on this one. That includes the past article.

Since the Wikileaks question has is rife with hypocrisy recently, and I have not said much to oppose it, I don’t think I have much choice but to accept this decision without dissent.

And Secretary of Defense nominee Mattis had a conversation with the Armed Services Committee about re-examining less than honorable discharges of servicemembers who may have had posttraumatic stress disorder play a role in their circumstances in a way that was not appreciated at the time. This is an issue that strikes a chord with me, and I don’t like to limit it to PTSD. I read too many stories of other rotten stuff that happens to people’s minds in the military and I think we should try to give people the benefit of the doubt somewhere.

Here there are claims that the then-Bradley Manning was mentally ill while he was in the service, and not in small part because of triggers from his service itself. I would like to see there be some investigation and accounting for claims of this nature in the military. In this case, it probably wasn’t difficult to find such evidence, given that Manning was put on suicide watch during the trial.

My only source of concern is that from what I heard, the application for a pardon alleged that Manning’s actions didn’t actually hurt anyone. I hope that wasn’t from her hand. I would like to see some evidence of remorse on her part.

Then there’s the fact that if people didn’t leak what was going on in our government, We the People simply wouldn’t know about it.

Screw Log Cabin’s official statement. Chelsea Manning is a hero. As is Edward Snowden. As is Julian Assange.

If Log Cabin is going to grovel to government power–regardless of what it does to us, or to those in other countries to whom we do grave harm–then Log Cabin is totally irrelevant to that or any other discussion.

I don’t know enough about the issue to pass judgement on these whistle blowers.
I can hear both arguments. Indeed, people who think Snowden is a hero seem hopelessly unaware. We’ve known the feds were spying on us for years. Hello. Hollywood made a movie about it.
And I haven’t seen any info in these leaks that the public needs to know. But again, the issue is complex, and there’s no way to get the info needed from a corrupt media and self-serving advocacy groups.

“Hopelessly unaware” of what? That there are potential bad consequences to whistles being blown?

Of course I’m aware of that. The option greatly to be preferred would be that we rise up and take responsibility for what our government does — in our name — all over the world and even at home, to our fellow citizens.

Pardon me, but people who bumble along with clueless generalizations about those bad consequences, or about how complicated it all is, without any appreciation of the situation are the ones who are hopelessly unaware.

Why MUST a person become a criminal, and quite possibly a fugitive from the law, for informing us about what our own government is doing? And if it is engaged in nefarious activities–things that would land us in prison if we did them–is it not to be expected that some of its little minions (people like Snowden and Manning) might eventually find their consciences overburdened and leak them?

By all means, let’s debate who’s “hopelessly unaware” and who isn’t. I would love nothing better.

That US soldiers kill lots of civilians from heartless flying machines?

That soldiers celebrate kills like winning points in a video game?

That our military works clandestinely with local civilians in contested territory?

That our diplomats say mean things behind our allies’ backs?

That we spy on our allies?

That the FBI collects information over the cell phone lines without warrants in the name of the War on Terror?

That everyone in the government considers all of this legitimate and legal?

All this we knew, and more importantly we had representatives in Congress to look over the shoulders of our government.

Why MUST a person become a criminal, and quite possibly a fugitive from the law, for informing us about what our own government is doing?

Because what our public does not have a right to speak in the public square is the United States’s official opinion of how to successfully carry out a military attack or defense against our own country.

That means no facts that can be used to form such an opinion, like when, how often, and what the FBI taps that can be used to form an opinion that the best way to defend against cyberwarfare against terrorists is to not use cell phones.

No dates or times of quotations of foreign diplomats that are not already part of joint conferences, for that reveals how to avoid our spies. And countries that successfully avoid our spies become more dangerous to us.

Everything our government does, it does in our name. Actually, WE do it.

We have no moral right to do things to others that would be criminal–and deservedly land us in prison–if we did them as individuals. We are morally responsible for the actions of our government. Therefore we must know what it is doing.

It is the very things it is doing that put us in danger from spies, terrorists and the like. If we stopped doing those things, and just minded our own damned business, we could concentrate better on defeating terrorism and espionage against us.

We have no moral right to do things to others that would be criminal–and deservedly land us in prison–if we did them as individuals. We are morally responsible for the actions of our government. Therefore we must know what it is doing.

If we were a democracy and everyone voted and every little thing? Sure, we would need to know everything.

But the average American no more needs to know what a diplomats personal thoughts on the Prime Minister of Germany then a shareholder of Pepsi needs to know what some middle-manager thinks of the CEO of Coke.

TJ, then what’s your first clue that another option is necessary? Beyond keeping the American people in the dark, of course.

Granted, you’ve made it amply clear that you think libertarians are KA-RAAZY, but we are virtually the only people asking that question. If you really want to save America from our lunacy, you might want to get off the stick and start asking that question yourself.

Person who actually works in the DoD and has access to classified material here.

A large part of the problem with Manning isn’t that she leaked something that she felt the public needed to know, it’s that she downloaded things whole-sale and passed them to someone else to make that determination, in many cases without knowing the contents of what she was passing along.

And this is part of the training you get when you get a security clearance. That it’s a crime to leak stuff, bit also that there are legal and ethical ways to do it when something does deserve to be exposed. Passing a mass download to a guy you met on the internet in the hope that he’ll do the right thing? That is never the right answer.

Well, you are completely missing the point. I’m not arguing that people like Chelsea Manning should do what they do. I’m arguing that if the American people didn’t fall asleep at the wheel and ignore what government does — until someone blows a whistle (in whatever dangerous and potentially harmful way) — this would not happen.

Are these, or are these not, your words?
“We are morally responsible for the actions of our government. Therefore we must know what it is doing.”

Given the context of this conversation (Chelsea Manning), I wasn’t supposed to read that as a defense of Manning and reckless wholesale disclosure of classified documents?

I was supposed to read that and not think that you don’t want the government keeping secrets?

And by-the-by? America has been “slaughtering civilians in other countries ” for longer then I’ve been alive, and it’s been public knowledge. If you needed a leak to tell you that, then you weren’t paying attention. And it wasn’t any of the famous leaks that told us about the drone kill lists and how they included some Americans.

For centuries, gay people have served with distinction and honor in the armed forces, and it is the service of these countless veterans whom today’s gays can thank for the freedom to serve openly. Bradley Manning’s actions are fodder to those who have long argued that homosexuality naturally leads to treason; some on the far right have argued that his actions were intended as “revenge” over the military’s then-enforced anti-gay policy. It is unconscionable that gay activists, of all people, would play into these slanders.

If it hadn’t been Manning, it would have been someone else. The conservative Christian anti-gay spin machine may have lost the war for the hearts and minds of the American people, but that hasn’t slowed them down.

Kirchick should spend some time reflecting on the actions of the hard-core segregationists during the decade following Brown v. Board, as African-Americans little by slowly integrated into American society. Every single lapse of judgment or behavior by African-Americans was held up as proof positive that integration was a mistake. Any African-American who wasn’t a Sidney Portier style Super-Negro– essentially a nonhuman caricature of a human — was grist for the anti-Black hate machine, and it isn’t over even now.

We are going though a similar period at this time, and will be going though it for another decade or so, most likely. Like African-Americans of post-segregation era, we will be held to an impossible standard. Live with it.

And the key still would be in the trash. I am not convinced by what I am reading of the president’s motivations. I don’t think it’s anything on him, but there was a political payback to the gay lobby for this.

(But Manning herself wrote the commutation request.)

…that speaks to why I’m not buying it.

The president could have flattened that air of arrogance about Manning years ago. Not saying he should have. He could have. He didn’t. That had its consequence.

We wouldn’t be having this discussion. The commutation might have been controversial, but Stephen would have been denied the opportunity to use the commutation as a hammer against the LGBT community.

BTW, I see that the New York Post is hot and heavy on the idea that President Trump should dance with Caitlyn Jenning tomorrow night. If he does, you can bet that Gregory Angelo will cream his pants over the symbolism.

Over the next few days, we’ll begin to see what the Trump administration does with the Obama administration’s Executive Orders and departmental regulations protecting gays, lesbians and transgendered from employment, medical and other discrimination.

he went out of his way to acknowledge his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway at a fundraiser dinner (that for some reason Fox News carried live) by asking her to come up to the stage with him–rather half-awkward considering she was dressed in an evening gown, but this is the last time he’ll get to acknowledge her as the candidate so I thought that was an awesome gesture.

If I really believe that, it seems to me that the idea of dancing with Caitlyn Jenner would be a significant thing for him to act on the first opportunity he’ll have to acknowledge civilians as the Head of State.

I think that’s being too idealistic, though. I wouldn’t expect President Obama to dance with a gay man.

(50 years ago they wouldn’t have expected Richard Dawson to kiss a black woman.)

Richard Dawson had 50 years to explore his own racial social pansexuality. The analogous does not apply to Donald Trump.

Sorry, Jorge. I understood you to be a person of faith. I see I must have been wrong about that.

I find your lack of tolerance annoying and your argument irrelevant.

Since you see human beings as gods unto themselves–answering to no higher authority–it is useless to argue with you about who is responsible for what.

When the Conclave of Cardinals meets and chooses the Pope, a higher power visits the world, and from that influence comes an authority that is higher than mortal man.

Such a thing has only happened in the United States at most twice: once in the Continental Congress, and once in the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, and even then it was very different, for the authority manifest itself into a collective consciousness of the patriot.

Such that in Rome, a group of corrupt people empower a Bishop chosen by God to lead people to the kingdom of heaven. In the United States, an institution favored by God choose a corrupt person to promote a corrupt cause–the protection of earthly life.

Don’t Catholics believe life is sacred? Indeed we do. But putting life above faith leads to a corruption of both.

However that’s all really just a matter of faith, Lori. The government’s purpose is to protect the people. It should serve that purpose.

“Given the context of this conversation (Chelsea Manning), I wasn’t supposed to read that as a defense of Manning and reckless wholesale disclosure of classified documents?”

“I was supposed to read that and not think that you don’t want the government keeping secrets?”

John in CA, this is vintage you. And it’s exactly what I’m talking about.

I don’t think the government should keep secret that it’s engaged in activities the people don’t want it to undertake. And if it didn’t do that, no whistleblowers would be needed.

The issue is neither (A) whether the government had ever done these things before nor (B) whether anyone knew about it. It is whether it should be accountable for what it does.

Bad things happen when bad things are done. It doesn’t necessarily excuse the people who do the bad things (exposing that the government is killing civilians, for example). But if the entire situation sucks, it must be remedied.

If it shouldn’t be remedied by whistleblowing, then what about that “transparency” Obama promised us?

We were supposed to be getting “the most transparent government EVAH” when he took charge. What a joke that turned out to be.

Now the same toadies who excused absolutely everything Obama did or failed to do are bellyaching and throwing temper tantrums because leaks exposed that Hillary Clinton is monstrously corrupt, criminally irresponsible and totally unfit to hold even the office of dogcatcher.

We’re not supposed to look past the shiny object dangled before us–“look! Russians!”–to notice the content of the information leaked.

These halfwits will throw tantrums and complain for the entirety of Trump’s administration. What they’ll never have the stones to admit is that their incompetence and willingness to tolerate corruption is what got him elected in the first place.

“John, you are such a liar that you really ought to be working for Bill/Hill or Fauxchahontas.”

…

“Then there’s the fact that if people didn’t leak what was going on in our government, We the People simply wouldn’t know about it.”

“The option greatly to be preferred would be that we rise up and take responsibility for what our government does — in our name — all over the world and even at home, to our fellow citizens.”

“Why MUST a person become a criminal, and quite possibly a fugitive from the law, for informing us about what our own government is doing? And if it is engaged in nefarious activities–things that would land us in prison if we did them–is it not to be expected that some of its little minions (people like Snowden and Manning) might eventually find their consciences overburdened and leak them?”

“We have no moral right to do things to others that would be criminal–and deservedly land us in prison–if we did them as individuals. We are morally responsible for the actions of our government. Therefore we must know what it is doing.”

“I don’t think the government should keep secret that it’s engaged in activities the people don’t want it to undertake.”

“Chelsea Manning is a hero. As is Edward Snowden. As is Julian Assange.”

“I’m not arguing that people like Chelsea Manning should do what they do.”

You post these quotes apparently believing that they’re somehow erroneous. You must not be terribly bright.

If the citizenry took the responsibility of demanding to know what our government was doing–in our name, and with our tax money, endangering the lives of the kids we send overseas to fight its wars–then people like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden would not need to leak sensitive information.

If you are intellectually incapable of understanding what I mean by that, then there’s no sense trying to explain it to you.

Chase Strangio, Manning’s ACLU attorney, said that “Her story really does reflect so much of the systemic discrimination that transgender people face,” adding “She’s an incredibly thoughtful and devoted person,” and that “She’s felt a sense of responsibility to the transgender community and wanted to be someone who contributed to the fight for transgender justice.”

This is where Tom Scharbach reminds me that the ACLU is a non-ideological organization and that what Manning’s attorney is really doing is the cynical crocodile tear-mining all ethical attorneys are supposed to do.

Yes, Jorge, it certainly should. But it doesn’t.

Yes it does. Your political opposition-motivated analysis that it does not is absolutely, positively, no justification whatsoever for supporting criminal behavior. That’s what led to **** like the FALN (another nice commutation controversy) in a time well after the United States government was known for violence toward Puerto Rico.

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IGF CultureWatch is a blog that originated with the Independent Gay Forum, a group of writers and activists who focused on advancing gay and lesbian legal equality and social inclusion beyond ideological rigidity and leftwing orthodoxy. more